Call of the Wild

travellers’ tales Call of the wild Luxury stores and expensive cars may be starting to appear on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, but all around Mongolia’s rapidly modernising capital city lies pristine wilderness, where the skies are big and a slow pace of life prevails. Tom o’malley explores both sides of this beguiling country 22 volume eleven Summit volume eleven Summit 23 travellers’ tales shaft of yellow light pierced the tent as Bold, cardboard box under one arm, ducked inside. ‘Eat soon,’ the young herdsman announced. Taking a buck knife from inside his woollen coat, Mongolia’s sole city can feel like a wild, A Bold set upon the box’s mysterious contents like a surgeon. Moments querulous outpost… But then the sun comes later he tossed each of us an oval object. ‘Do like this,’ he said, rubbing his palms together. ‘Good for health.’ It was a hot, greasy stone. out and the city takes on a new sparkle The smell of fatty meat and woodsmoke cleared the cobwebs as we sat in our sleeping bags and stared at the most unlikely breakfast imaginable: a marmot, shot little more than two hours before on the grassy slopes that skirt Mongolia’s Great White Lake. Toast and infamously unforgiving winters, known as zud. The smell of mutton marmalade usually does it for me, but how often do you get the chance dumplings, called buuz, wafts out of utilitarian canteens, mingling to try a traditional boodog? Essentially a Bronze Age barbecue, a boodog with the just-baked sweetness of Korean chain doughnuts. Soviet-era is as primitive as it is ingenious. The animal, be it marmot or goat, is apartments seem to crumble into the steppe just as gleaming, cooked by stuffing it with scorching hot stones and singeing off the Chinese-built high-rises erupt like steel spores. Wildlife watching fur. Like many pursuits in Mongolia, it’s the preserve of men. Not But then the sun comes out and the city takes on a new sparkle. A Despite the harsh climate and Gazelle The far-eastern plains surprisingly, really, since there’s fire involved – and no washing up. burgeoning restaurant and café culture has taken hold in the past few nomadic hunting practices, wildlife are still home to huge, migratory The taste? Let’s just say a dollop of ketchup wouldn’t have gone years: I discovered deliciously retro mousse au chocolat at Le Bistrot flourishes in this huge, landlocked populations of wild gazelle, moving country. Here are some of the en masse in their thousands. amiss, but this was my first adventure in Mongolia and condiments Français, on a leafy side street north of Sukhbaatar Square, and creatures you might be lucky Bring binoculars! hadn’t featured on my packing list. Beginner’s mistake. whiled away a pleasant afternoon on the sun terrace of Café enough to spot: Eagle Eagles abound on the Most visitors to the country touch down at Ulaanbaatar’s Chinggis Amsterdam, book in hand, nursing cappuccino and panini. Takhi Horse (also known as steppe and, in the country’s western Khaan International Airport – and so begins your first of many Przewalski’s Horse) These animals reaches, nomadic ‘eagle hunters’ became extinct in the wild in the have domesticated these giant birds encounters with Mongolia’s most iconic man. The tyrant whose The city and the steppe 1960s, but are flourishing again of prey to hunt for animals. Mongol hordes sacked cities from Baghdad to Budapest is the Shoppers are spoilt for choice. Fuelled by lucrative mining contracts, thanks to assistance from zoos Reindeer Herded by the ancient focus of a revived sense of national pride after 90 years of Soviet the booming economy has ushered in the likes of Louis Vuitton, around the world. See them frolic Tsaatan people close to the Siberian occupation. Branded an imperialist by the Russians, Chinggis Khaan Emporio Armani, Burberry and Hugo Boss, clustered around the in the water at Khustain National border, these animals are rapidly Park, just west of Ulaanbaatar. dwindling in number because of is now a brand in his own right, lending his name to everything from glitzy Central Tower development east of the centre. Locally made Wolf The Mongolians believe deforestation and other threats. cigarettes to banks. luxury goods are heating up, too, and Mongolian cashmere is the Chinggis Khaan was partly Wild camel A small number Under bulbous grey skies, Mongolia’s sole city can feel like a wild, descended from a wolf. Called of these animals (also known querulous outpost. Japanese sedans, bling Hummers and battered Clockwise, from top left: Yurts (or gers) between the steppe and the sky; a horse and his chonno in Mongolian, they are as Bactrian camels) still roam wild boy – Mongolian children learn to ride at an early age; a stern Chinggis Khaan watches Russian Jeeps inch along potholed roads. Suited city-slickers mix widely hunted because of the in the remotest regions of the over his old lands from his new statue complex; a nomadic hunter releases a golden threat they pose to livestock. Gobi Desert. with the migrant poor, the formerly nomadic detritus of Mongolia’s eagle in search of prey; two ages of Ulaanbaatar nestle together in the heart of the city 24 volume eleven Summit volume eleven Summit 25 travellers’ tales world’s finest. Walk south from the Communist-style State was constructed from masonry from Karakorum. Partly destroyed by WHERE TO STAY Department Store and you’ll find stylish boutiques selling scarves, the Russians in the 1940s, it’s still a fascinatingly complete temple For further information sweaters and coats at prices far below those you’d pay back home. In daylight, the distant green hills take on a complex in the loneliest of settings. and reservations, please visit It’s here that you’ll also find, of all things, a monument to the pale-blue wash, as if the sky itself has leaked Buddhism came to Mongolia via China, but the country’s far older www.SummitHotels.com Beatles, one of Ulaanbaatar’s quirkier delights. Wander west and shamanistic beliefs are in evidence across the landscape. On rocky Chinggis Khaan hotel you’ll stumble on another: the finest LEGO shop outside Denmark, into the landscape crags and hilltops, little heaps of stones called ovoos are laced with in the heart of the capital, the run by a local lady with a love for toy bricks. horse skulls and strips of blue cloth, the colour symbolising sky Chinggis Khaan Hotel is conveniently Equally unexpected is the enormous pair of fossilised arms, tipped worship. A few days on the steppe and you start to understand. The situated close to central Sukhbaatar Square and the luxury shopping by 30cm hooked claws, that hangs from the wall of the sleepy Natural green grassland is a constant – it’s the ever-changing ‘eternal blue of Central Tower. The hotel has History Museum. ‘Terrible hand’, the monster these limbs belonged motorcycle, it’s a scene little-changed since the first bricks of the sky’, with its great, puffy banks of buffeting clouds, rain, wind and elegantly understated guestrooms, swimming pool, fitness studio and to, is one of the great unsolved mysteries of palaeontology. The arms Great Wall were laid to keep these hardy nomadic folk at bay. blue stillness, that lends form to every vista. complimentary internet and an massage and sauna centre offer the were unearthed, along with many of the world’s best dinosaur finds, international buffet breakfast in perfect rejuvenating therapy after Temuujin restaurant. An indoor your excursions into the wild. in Mongolia’s southern Gobi Desert. Summer among the ruins Plain living Ulaanbaatar’s traditional pursuits deserve a chunk of your The tourist season runs through Mongolia’s fleeting summer, when Head south from Ulaanbaatar and it’s possible to reach the mighty itinerary, too. At the National Sports Stadium, wrestlers do battle streams gurgle and wildflowers dance on the breezy hillsides. Gobi in as little as five hours. The Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, a bleak, However you choose to discover Mongolia’s countryside, you each July in the Naadam Festival. The ramshackle Choijin Lama Summer is also ‘white season’, a reference to the rivers of milk semi-desert landscape, is home to one of the last remaining can count on several constants: the hospitality of herdsmen and Temple houses chilling depictions of Buddhist hell and stages a free produced by the country’s 17 million herd animals. Little girls in frilly populations of Argali sheep, with their giant, corkscrew horns. their families; the monotony of plain, boiled meat (remember the daily performance of throat-singing in the temple courtyard. dresses crouch by the roadside, hawking bottles of airag – fermented Travel northwest from the capital and the landscape changes again sauces!); and, more than anything, the space, stillness and sparklingly But, of course, you don’t come to one of the world’s great unspoilt horse’s milk of varying alcoholic intensity, and Mongolia’s favourite as you ascend into the protected Khan Khentii, a mountainous clean air. In daylight, the distant green hills take on a pale-blue wildernesses to spend all your time in the city. Leave Ulaanbaatar tipple. Lip-puckeringly sour, it’s the tonic of weddings, funerals or any wilderness on the Siberian frontier. Home to birch forests, fertile river wash, as if the sky itself has leaked into the landscape. At night, in any direction and, in a matter of kilometres, it happens. You’re other excuse for a knees-up. y valleys and wildlife such as brown bear and lynx, it’s the perfect area a billion stars appear so clear and close you could sweep them up am l A , out there.

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